Daddy, daddy, oh my daddy!

Today’s ‘The Hindu’ (21 October 2008 ) carries an interesting and thought provoking piece of news in its last page under the caption ‘Fathers aloof’. It says that the Australian fathers spend only six minutes alone with their children on week days, according to research. It is also reported that they also leave most child-raising chores to women. My initial reaction, on reading this piece of news, was why this should make news now when we have known it in India for several centuries. My mind raced back to my own childhood when the only interaction we ever had with our father was to get a dressing down occasionally. All the dressing down for the whole year would average out to about 5 minutes a day.

The common joke about a busy father those days was that his child wouldn’t know who its father was because he always left for office before the child woke up in the morning and returned back from the office only after the child had gone to bed. On Sundays and holidays, he would spend most of his time with his friends playing cards and on such productive avocation! I remember vividly the thrashing of a peer of mine by his mother because he pointed out to his father on a Sunday morning and asked his mother who that uncle was! My own dad never knew much about our academic progress save what he might gather from our progress reports!

My dad was always a highly pre-occupied man though none of us knew the exact nature of his pre-occupation. He seemed always lost in thought and would have made a better model for Rodin while he was sculpting his famous ‘The Thinker’. But my mum always told her friends that the pre-occupied look of my dad was just a ruse to keep us out of his way! But in retrospect, when I did the same with my two daughters, it became plain to me that men were not cut out for directing the course of children. I realised that men were better in pursuing their corporate ambitions but when it came to raising their children, they would trust their wives more. Men are shrewd enough to take up only such assignments where there is a least chance of anything going wrong because they are generally averse to being held accountable for any goofing up. And they are really weary of areas where any goofing up could lead to a life long problem.

The only pockets where men may be playing an active role in bringing up their children will be the aborigines of the world who continue to live by the strength of their brawn and not brain. In such cases, men may be in a better position to teach their wards about hunting without getting hurt and such secrets of life. In the rest of the world, mothers have been undoubtedly playing a greater role in molding the character of their children. The most outstanding summing up of a mother’s role in molding the lives of her children comes from David McKay, “The noblest calling in the world is that of mother. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece or who can write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will be exerting an influence throughout the ages long after painting shall have faded, and books and statues shall have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give”